“Don’t stiff me with the check,” I say. I dump gravy over the top of his head. Slowly and completely.
Spirit howls with laughter. Brown, greasy gravy drips down through his perfectly combed hair, over his ears, onto his fancy white four-dollar Sears and Roebuck shirt.
The din in this basement dies. All eyes are on me. Me and Pax.
Pax swipes his crystalline green eyes clear. He blinks and flips his head once, gravy flying. He dips his chin gently toward me. “You have my wallet.”
It is only then that I realize: The bulk of his wallet is dragging down the left side of his blazer, which I’m still wearing. My embarrassment dragsmedown.
I drop the gravy boat. It clatters to the cement floor.
I shrug out of his jacket and throw it at him.
“You!” a voice behind me grunts. Frank. “No women in the beefsteak dungeon. OUT!”
I glance at Pax, whose head is dripping with rich gravy, whose face is bloody with rare meat. It is too symbolic. It rings too true.
His gaze locks with mine, his eyes a flash of silver. Is he… grinning?
I want to scream with deep frustration. I want to growl. I have to get out of here. I should never have come.
“Stella, wait!” Pax leaps up, but I’m already leaving. He curses. Frank shoves a table aside, yelling, “Hold up, Princip! You need to settle your bill!”
I don’t wait. I take the stairs two at a time.
Spirit never leads me into danger. Just the opposite.
I need to be far away from the dark temptations of Pax Princip.
CHAPTER SIX
The following day I’m at a new boardinghouse, a mere half block up Bowery. I hang my sign on a nail jutting off the sagging front porch. My carved sign features a rose woven with a daisy, and it means I’m open for business. One must still eat, after all. Two minutes later aknock, knock-knock, knocksounds at my door. It’s the secret knock of my regulars.
The door creaks open, and there is Miss Cambridge, her plump cheeks glistening from the climb up two flights of stairs. “Lady Rose!” she pants, leaning in the doorway. “You’re back! Oh, the time I had, finding you this week.”
I lead her to her pillow, offer her a cup of tea. Miss Cambridge dumps three, four heaping spoonfuls of sugar into her tea, slurps it, then adds a fifth. Sugar is expensive; this is like watching her spoon hours of my fake readings into her tea. “Now, Lady Rose, a question about this soulmate of mine we’ve been discussing—”
Soulmates—hmmph. What do I know of those?
I inhale. “Did I tell you about his watch, Miss Cambridge?”
She flutters her eyelashes. “Ooooo, no! There’s precision in a man who wears a nice timepiece. Do tell.”
“Well—” I am uncertain where to begin. I do indeed feel a partner is in Miss Cambridge’s future. I also feel there is much pain there. How does one relay such a delicate message?
“LADY ROSE, YOU ARE A MONSTER AND YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!”
The words hammer through the window. I wince. Partly because they are so LOUD, partly becausehow the hell did they find me so fast this time, but mainly because they are twisting the ever-present knife in my back. The one that wonders if they are right.
“YOU ARE SATAN HIMSELF, MASQUERADING AS AN ANGEL OF LIGHT!”
I stalk to the velvet curtain and yank it open. The sunlight stuns me. Shrew-faced Reverend Jenkins is there, megaphone in hand, yelling up at my window from the sidewalk.
“YOU ARE A SCAM, A LIAR, A WITCH!”
A crowd gathers. One of them taps his shoulder, gestures to the building, shrugs.
Reverend Jenkins’s face pulls tighter still. He waves his arms about, spittle flying, as he explains to this new gentleman how sinful I am. A clairvoyant! A scam! A scourge! The gentleman who asked the question glares up at me. His jaw tightens, his fists ball, his brow furrows. He begins shouting at me, too.
